Small Drill Presses For Electronics Repair

Too_Many_Tools wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@n60g2000hse.googlegroups.com:

One that does what you want and costs what you are willing to pay for it....

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Too_Many_Tools wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@n60g2000hse.googlegroups.com:

Get a good woodworking or metalworking one. Make sure it can take your half inch bits (as a fellow reader of the wRECk, you'll understand) and don't worry about the small ones. If your chuck won't hold them, get an adapter. (My Ryobi held a #80 bit with no trouble.)

Puckdropper

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I've been using the smallest "real" Crafstman drill press for about 25 years. (Probably called a 6 inch or 8 inch model.)

They are usually less than $100 on sale (and that price doesn't seem to have changed in 25 years!). It will hold very small bits with no detectible runout, but is large enough to handle medium size jobs. I have a 15" drill press as well but that gets a lot less use.

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Hmmmm, maybe drilling out riveted transistors??

I usually use a drill press for construction. There is one widely available, and they are about $39. I have one and it pretty good for that money. If one needs to drill PC holes, I don't know how much precision is necessary before you start breaking drill bits.

greg

Exactly what (repair?) work would you want to do on circuit boards, that would require such a tool ...?

Arfa

Agreed

Arfa

Ne' mind Smitty. We all still love ya ! For what it's worth, I have been directly involved, right down at floor level, with electronic REPAIR for over 37 years now, working on a huge variety of equipment from full-blown industrial to general domestic, and in all that time, I have never had to go down to break an internal layer of a board to effect an ECO. That's not to say that I haven't *seen* it done. I used to work with some computer graphics equipment that employed, as I recall, 6-layer boards, but it might even have been 8, now I think back. Some prototypes or early development versions of boards had occasionally had this done to them at the factory, but such problems were quickly corrected in the design. If you had to do enough of them that it involved having to have your own equipment for doing it at a repair, rather than factory level, I don't think that it says much for the design of the board, or of the ability of the designers and PCB manufacturers to rapidly correct any such problems of design, 'on the fly'. If you are figuring on having to do touchy delicate work like this on a regular basis, I hope that your clients have deep wallets to be able to pay you what you will need to charge to make a living at it ...

Arfa

Okay, then you're missing the obvious.

This newsgroup, sci.electronics.repair is about the repair of electronic equipment.

People questioned why you'd need a drillpress for repair. And you respond with lines that are more about electronics in general.

Nobody is arguing that a drillpress is useful.

They are just questioning where a drillpress comes into use in the repair (not prototyping, not production changes on existing equipment) of electronic equipment.

Michael

I do make more and more use out of Dremmel like tools and bits. Using a drill press for this would be a handycap.

greg

The only use that I know of for a drill press in electronics PCB repair or manufacturing is for an ECO, where you drill out a Via because of a layout change, or mistake. Otherwise, the floor model drill press is used to remove rivets. to make sure you remove no other material.

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Michael A. Terrell
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He has the same chip on his shoulder on: news:rec.crafts.metalworking where most people either ignore him, or have him killfiled.

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Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
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Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

I didn't "Side" with anyone. I merly pointed out that your attitude was the same on another newsgroup that was very relieved when you were gone for a while.

Stalking? I've been on the newgroup for years. It seems like you're the one following me around.

Luckily, most are NOT like you.

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Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida